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SALT LAKE CITY — Royce O’Neale had an open shot; he didn’t shoot. He had an open teammate on his left; he didn’t pass.
Donovan Mitchell had drawn four Denver Nuggets to him leaving the perimeter wide open, but when he passed the ball out, O’Neale looked like he suddenly got the yips. He hesitated once and then twice and then, as he lifted his pivot foot, he was called for a travel.
Jazz coach Quin Snyder said his team got distracted late in their Game 5 loss on Tuesday. And that play showed just that.
Essentially it came down to this: The Jazz got up big and thought the Nuggets were gonna roll over. When they didn’t, well, things got bad.
Mitchell threw an unpressured pass to no one. O’Neale allowed Jamal Murray to simply cut into the basket without following him. Mike Conley argued about a call as Denver ran the other way. And there was the combination of plays, beginning at the 9:41 mark of the fourth quarter, that really drove the distracted point home.
The Jazz were up by 1 when Murray gave O’Neale a slight nudge before an inbounds play. O'Neale glanced over at the ref as Murray sprinted to the top of the key for a wide-open 3. O’Neale them compounded that mistake (it’s not going to be a good film session for him on Wednesday) by setting one of the most obvious illegal screens you’ll ever see. That was his fifth foul, which forced the Jazz to use other defenders to check Murray — who, if you hadn’t heard, had a pretty decent game.
“I thought we were looking for a call at various times instead of going a little stronger to the basket,” Snyder said. “And more than anything, mentally we weren’t able to get to the next play and as a result they started to get on a run.”
They were mistakes by players who already assumed they were on their way to the second round.
The good news for the Jazz: They are still the team that went up 3-1 in the series and the team that had a 15-point lead in a closeout game.
“I mean, we are the same team that played well enough to have that lead,” Snyder said. “In these situations, that’s the important time to not have that happen and to not get distracted and to continue to come together. Our guys know that.”
Mitchell said the team did “stuff that we haven’t done all series” and “just kind of got out of our character.” Conley said the team wasn’t “locked in.”
Distracted, out of character, not locked in — that’s why the Jazz fell apart in the second half. And while Snyder and his players were quick to give the Nuggets credit for how they came back on Tuesday, it was hard to shake the feeling that they had done a lot of the damage to themselves. It wasn’t Denver that kept O’Neale from chasing Murray not once but twice. It wasn’t Denver that made Conley complain to the refs. It wasn’t Denver that stopped O'Neale from shooting. Those were all mental mistakes.
“In a situation like that the other team doesn’t care what’s going on in your mind, they are going to keep pushing, they are going to keep going and keep fighting,” Conley said. “That’s what teams like Denver do, they’re very good, they’re not going to lay down easy, it’s going to be a fight and we understand that.”
At least, they understand it now. So their attention — and this time, Snyder hopes, their full attention — turns to Game 6 on Thursday. That's another chance to finish off the series. And finish it for real this time.
“Oftentimes when the team's making a run you get a little distracted and that's when we have to come together even more," Snyder said. "Our guys know that; they will come out ready to play the next game."
